1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a translation display apparatus and method for translating natural language text from a first language to a second language using a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of natural language processing techique using a computer, a machine translation apparatus for translating document from a first language (for example, English) to a second language (for example, Japanese) has been used.
Conventionally, the machine translation apparatus is used as a support system for effectively translating a large volume of documents. First, a large number of orignal sentences in the first language (for example, in English) are inputted to the machine translation apparatus. Then, the large number of original sentences are translated into the secord language (for example, Japanese) by unit of sentence order in sequence. However, it often happens that a user wants the translation of only a few sentences corresponding to a few original sentence after the large number of original sentences are inputted to the machine translation apparatus. In this conventional case, first, the large number of original sentences are displayed on an original sentence area of the display, where the display area consists of an original sentence area, a translated sentence area, and a command menu area. Then, the user traces one original sentence selected to be translated by using a mouse or pointing device, and designates a translation command by selecting from the menu. The selected original sentence (English) is processed by the machine translation program and translated to a translated sentence (Japanese). Last, the translated sentence is displayed on the translated sentence area of the display. In this conventional apparatus, there are two problems.
As a first problem, in the case of selecting the original sentence to be translated, the user must trace the original sentence exactly on the display and designate the translation command. In short, the user must input two kinds of operation. These operations impose a significant burden on the user.
As a second problem, the translation is displayed in the translated sentence area, which is in a different position from the original sentence area on the display. Accordingly, the user must move his viewpoint from the original sentence area to the translated sentence area and the user's eyes become tired while viewing the display.